Finding a Lost Son

Some stories entertain, some thrill, and some—like the piece in our Sept. 18 issue about pregnant teenagers in the 1960s who were forced to give up their babies for adoption and later found them—can actually bring people together.

Nancy Morrison Spradling, now 62, of Haltom City, Texas, had told only a handful of close friends that she had given up a child for adoption almost 45 years ago—and had wondered ever since what had happened to the baby. When she saw our article, she says, "I kept reading it and rereading it. I was so depressed I couldn't even talk." She was also inspired: "I thought, 'If these mothers went after their kids, I can too.'"
Morrison Spradling contacted an investigator and just 12 hours later received the news: Her son Thay Collis lived five miles away. When the mother and son met at a local baseball park, "we couldn't take our eyes off each other," says Morrison Spradling, who owns a landscaping business and has a daughter in California. "I always knew there was something missing from my life. Now I am a totally different person." For his part, Collis, a maintenance worker, says he was told years ago that his biological mother was too young to keep him. Still, he adds, "I hoped she would contact me someday." He was suspicious when the investigator called, but when she produced his birth certificate number, he was convinced. Nothing, he says, compares with having finally met his birth mother: "It has changed my life. I am complete. That question is answered."